Apparatus and method for merging wireless telephone service with existing wired telephone equipment in a facility

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and method for merging mobile, or wireless, telephone service with existing wired telephone equipment in a facility, such as a home or business, are provided. With the apparatus and method, a converter is associated with the facility such that a wireless telephone number is associated with the converter. Telephone calls may be made to the facility via a wireless telephone network and the converter. The converter receives calls from the wireless telephone network directed to the converter, converts the format of the wireless telephone call to a wired telephone call format, and routes these calls to one or more wired telephone units in the facility. Calls originating from the wired telephone units in the facility are received by the converter which converts the call signals to an appropriate format for wireless network routing, and forwards the call to the wireless network.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for mergingwireless telephone service with existing wired telephone equipment in afacility.

2. Description of Related Art

Mobile, also called wireless, telephones are becoming more prevalent intoday's society. Many households have at least one mobile telephone andmany businesses now issue wireless telephones to their employees.However, the mobile phone and phones used within the home or businessfacilities are rarely the same. Moreover, the mobile phone typically hasa different telephone number than the telephones in the home or businessfacilities. For example, a telephone service subscriber may have a firsttelephone number assigned to the land-line telephones in his/her homeand a second telephone number assigned to his/her mobile telephone.

Thus, telephone service subscribers must pay for two separate telephonesubscriptions and cope with having two different telephone numbers.Furthermore, the persons that will attempt to contact the subscribermust be made aware of both telephone numbers and often must try bothtelephone numbers when attempting to contact the subscriber.

Many subscribers would prefer to use their mobile telephones everywhereand discontinue their subscriptions to wired telephone service. Thereare many reasons why users may prefer to use their mobile telephones.First, many services that have extra fees associated with them in awired telephone service are free with mobile telephone servicesubscriptions, including CallerID and VoiceMail. Second, the cost ofusage may, depending on the mobile telephone service subscription plan,be less than that of wired service.

On the other hand, with wired telephone service, many wired telephonesmay be connected and use the same telephone number with no additionalcost. In addition wire telephone units are typically cheaper than mobiletelephones (unless they are purchased through special incentive offersprovided by mobile telephone service providers). Thus, it would bebeneficial to have an apparatus and method for merging mobile telephoneservice with existing wired telephone service equipment in facilities.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An apparatus and method for merging mobile, or wireless, telephoneservice with existing wired telephone equipment in a facility, such as ahome or business, are provided. With the apparatus and method, aconverter is associated with the facility such that a wireless telephonenumber is associated with the converter. Telephone calls may be made tothe facility via a wireless telephone network and the converter.

The converter receives calls from the wireless telephone networkdirected to the converter, converts the format of the wireless telephonecall to a wired telephone call format, and routes these calls to one ormore wired telephone units in the facility. Calls originating from thewired telephone units in the facility are received by the converterwhich converts the call signals to an appropriate format for wirelessnetwork routing, and forwards the call to the wireless network.

In an alternative embodiment, a single telephone number may beassociated with a converter and with one or more wireless telephones.When a call is received and is directed to the telephone number, thetelephone call is routed to both the wireless telephone and theconverter. The converter operates in the same manner as in the previousembodiment. The wireless telephone operates in a normal fashion. Thetelephone that first answers the call receives the call signals and therouting of the call to the other telephones is discontinued.

In addition, the wireless telephone may be equipped with a locationdetermination device that determines the wireless telephone's geographiclocation. This geographic location may be reported to the wirelessservice provider. When a call is received for the telephone numberassociated with the wireless telephone and the converter, a check ismade to determine if the last reported location of the wirelesstelephone was the location of the facility associated with theconverter. If the last reported location was the same as the facilitylocation, calls are not routed to the wireless telephone and are onlyrouted to the wired telephone units via the converter.

Alternatively, telephone calls may be routed to both the converter andthe wireless telephone. In such an embodiment, both the converter andthe wireless telephone have an electronic ID (EID), mobileidentification number (MIN), or the like. A single telephone number willhave the two EIDs associated with it. When a call is placed to thetelephone number, the call will be sent to both EIDs and thus, both theconverter and the wireless telephone. Other features and advantages ofthe invention will be described in, or will become apparent to those ofordinary skill in the art in view of, the following detailed descriptionof the preferred embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are setforth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well asa preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, willbest be understood by reference to the following detailed description ofan illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a telephone networkaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram illustrating a wireless to wiredtelephone converter according to the present invention;

FIG. 3A is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of the presentinvention when receiving a call from a wireless network;

FIG. 3B is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of the presentinvention when receiving a call from a facility wired telephone;

FIG. 4 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a telephone network inaccordance with a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is an exemplary block diagram of a wireless service provideraccording to the second exemplary embodiment; and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of the secondexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram of a telephone network inaccordance with the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the telephonenetwork 100 includes a wireless network 110, a wireless service provider115, a converter 120 and a facility 130 having one or more wiredtelephone units 140-160. The wireless network 110 may be a cellularnetwork, satellite network, infrared network, Bluetooth™ network, or thelike. The wireless network 110 may include a plurality of routers,switches, base stations, and the like. Moreover, the wireless network110 may include one or more wireless networks of the same or differenttypes. The wireless network 110 operates in the same manner as generallyknown in the art.

The wireless service provider 115 provides wireless telephone servicesto the facility 130 via the converter 120. The wireless service provider115 may operate in the same manner as generally known in the art withregard to providing wireless telephone service to wireless telephonedevices. In the present invention, the converter 120 is considered awireless telephone device by the wireless service provider 115 and thus,the wireless service provider 115 routes wireless telephone calls to theconverter 120 in much the same way that known wireless service providersroute wireless telephone calls to wireless telephone devices.

In an alternative embodiment, as described in more detail hereafter, thewireless telephone service provider may have its operation modified fromthat generally known of existing wireless telephone service providers,such that the wireless telephone service provider determines whether toroute wireless telephone calls to a wireless telephone unit and/or theconverter 120 based on its current location.

The converter 120 couples the wireless network 110 to the facility 130and facilitates the merging of wireless telephone service with the wiredtelephone equipment in the facility 130. The converter 120 convertswireless call signals received from the wireless telephone serviceprovider 115 into a format useable by the wired telephone units 140-160associated with the facility 130. The converter 120 then routes the callto the wired telephone units 140-160.

Conversely, the converter 120 may receive telephone call signals fromwired telephone units 140-160 and convert them to a wireless networkformat. The converter 120 may then route the call signals to thewireless telephone service provider 115 for routing through the wirelessnetwork 110 to the designated destination.

When a call is received by the converter 120 from the wireless network110, the call is converted to a format usable by wired telephone devices140-160. Such conversion is performed in a manner generally known in theart for sending mobile telephone calls to land-line telephones. Theconversion may include converting signaling protocols used by thewireless network to signaling protocols used by wired networks, forexample. In the present case, however, the call is not routed through anexternal wired telephone network to arrive at the facility telephoneunits 140-160 but rather, is routed to the converter 120 via thewireless network 110 and then from the converter 120 to the wiredtelephone units 140-160.

Once the converter 120 converts the call to a wired telephone networkprotocol, the converter 120 forwards the call to one or more of thewired telephone units 140-160 associated with the facility 130. Suchforwarding causes the wired telephone units 140-160 to which the call isforwarded to ring to thereby notify persons nearby that a telephone callis available to be received.

In this way, the wired telephone units 140-160 are operated in a normalfashion as if the call were routed through a wired telephone network.Thus, the recipient of telephone call is not aware of any difference inthe telephone service that they receive. Similarly, the calling partyplaces a call in the same fashion as they would without the presence ofthe present invention. The present invention operates as a bridgebetween the wireless network 110 and the facility 130 such thattelephone service may be provided by a wireless telephone serviceprovider to a wired telephone in the facility 130 with little if anydifference in the operating experience of the caller and the callrecipient.

In addition to the above, in forwarding the call to the wired telephoneunits 140-160, any special telephone services subscribed to by thewireless subscriber at the facility 130 will be provided in theforwarding of the call. Thus, for example, if the subscriber's wirelesstelephone service subscription includes a voicemail service and a callerID service, such services will be provided to the wired telephone units140-160, assuming the wired telephone units 140-160 are equipped to makeuse of such services. As a result, many services that do not require anadditional charge in the mobile telephone service subscription areprovided to wired telephone units without requiring an additional cost.

If the wired telephone units 140-160 are not equipped to make use of thewireless telephone services, the wired telephone units may be providedwith a separate device coupled to the wired telephone unit 140-160 thatprovides the necessary functionality. For example, as shown in FIG. 1,the wired telephone unit 140 may be provided with a wireless servicesunit 180 that provides one or more interfaces, circuitry, andapplications for providing wireless telephone services to the wiredtelephone unit 140. Thus, when the converter 120 forwards the call tothe wired telephone unit 140, the call is passed through the wirelessservices unit 180 which provides any wireless services identified in thecall signals. Thus, even wired telephone units that are not equipped tohandle wireless telephone services may be provided with these serviceswith the aid of an additional hardware unit.

When placing an outbound call, a calling party may make use of a wiredtelephone unit 140-160 in the facility 130 in a normal manner. Thecalling party dials the telephone number and awaits being connected tothe called party. The converter 120 receives the initiation call signalsfrom the wired telephone unit and converts them to a format useable withthe wireless telephone network 110. The converter 120 then forwards thecall to the wireless network 110 which then routes the call in a normalfashion to the destination telephone unit (either wired or wireless).

Moreover, while the present invention is being described in terms of asingle telephone number being associated with the converter 120, thepresent invention is not limited to such. Rather, multiple telephonenumbers may be associated with a single converter 120. This may be thecase in a business type facility 130, where there may be a pluralityof-different offices or the like, each may have their own telephonenumber.

In such a case, the wireless service provider 115 will route all callsto any of the telephone numbers associated with the facility 130 to theconverter 120. The converter 120 may then store a table identifyingwhich wired telephone units 140-160 correspond to different destinationtelephone numbers. Based on the destination telephone number of the callthat was received, as may be determined, for example, based on headerinformation or header signals, the converter 120 may identify theappropriate destination wired telephone unit 140-160 to which the callshould be forwarded. The call is then forwarded to the wired telephoneunit 140-160 based on this table look-up.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary block diagram of a converter according to thepresent invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the converter 200 includes acontroller 210, a memory 220, a facility wired network interface 230,and a wireless network interface 240. The elements 210-240 are coupledto one another via the control/data signal bus 250. Although a busarchitecture is shown in FIG. 2, the present invention is not limited tosuch and any architecture that facilitates the communication ofcontrol/data signals among the elements 210-240 may be used withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

The controller 210 controls the overall operation of the converter 200based on control programs stored in the memory 220. The controller 210operates to convert calls from a mobile network format to a wiredtelephone format, and vice versa, so that calls may be made to and fromthe wired telephone units associated with the facility to which theconverter 200 is assigned. In addition, the controller 210 may use alookup table in the memory 220 to identify to which one of the wiredtelephone units to forward the call based on the destination telephonenumber of the received call.

The facility wired network interface 230 provides a communicationinterface for sending and receiving calls to and from wired telephoneunits associated with the facility. The wireless network interface 240provides a communication interface for sending and receiving calls toand from wireless telephone units via the wireless network 110, forexample. The wireless network interface 240 may include, for example, atransceiver through which calls are sent and received in a wirelessmanner.

In addition to providing a gateway through which calls to a wirelesstelephone number may be routed to land-line telephones in a facility,the converter of the present invention may also keep track of the callsto and from each existing wired telephone, keep track of which telephonein the building the call was sent to or from, store telephonepreferences for each wired telephone, user preferences for each user ofthe wired telephones, store data regarding the telephone capabilities,maintain billing records, and the like. The converter may be providedwith data storage devices and applications for providing thesefunctions.

FIG. 3A is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of the presentinvention when receiving a call from a wireless network. As shown inFIG. 3A, the operation starts with the receipt of a call from a wirelessnetwork device (step 310). The call is converted from the wirelessnetwork format to a wired network format (step 320) and then routed toone or more of the wired telephone units in the facility (step 330).Such routing of the call to a wired telephone unit in the facility mayinclude a table look-up based on the destination telephone number aspreviously described.

FIG. 3B is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of the presentinvention when transmitting a call received from a wired telephone unitassociated with the facility. As shown in FIG. 3B, the operation startswith receiving a call from a wired telephone unit in the facilitydestined for an outside telephone number (step 340). The format of thecall is converted from a wired telephone network format to a wirelessnetwork format (step 350) and the call is transmitted to the wirelessnetwork (step 360). The call is then routed through the wireless networkin a normal fashion until it reaches the destination telephone unit(either wired or wireless).

Thus, the present invention provides an apparatus and method by whichtelephone calls may be routed to wired telephone units via a wirelessnetwork without the need for an external wired telephone network. Byvirtue of the present invention, wireless calls are routed directly tothe facility to which the calls are destined. A converter in thefacility then routes the call to an appropriate wired telephone unit.Thus, the facility owner/operator need only have one telephone serviceprovider, i.e. the wireless telephone service provider. Moreover, thefacility owner/operator may make use of many of the financial benefitsof wireless networks, such as free voicemail and caller ID services, andreduced costs due to having a single telephone service provider.

As a further embodiment of the present invention, the functionality ofthe present invention may be extended such that both wired and wirelesstelephones may be associated with the facility, and the presentinvention may discern when to route calls to the wired or the wirelesstelephones. FIG. 4 is an exemplary block diagram of a wireless networkin accordance with this further embodiment. The elements in FIG. 4 arethe same as those in FIG. 1 with the exception that a wireless telephoneunit 190 is associated with the facility 130.

The wireless telephone unit 190 may be carried by a user outside thelocation of the facility 130. In one embodiment of the presentinvention, calls to a telephone number associated with the converter 120may be routed to the wireless telephone unit 190 in a similar manner asthat described above with regard to FIG. 1. The difference here is thatsince the telephone unit 190 is wireless, the forwarding of the call tothe wireless telephone unit 190 does not require conversion of the callto a wired telephone network format. Further, the call is forwardedusing the wireless network 110 rather than the facility wired networkinterface 230.

In an alternative embodiment, the wireless telephone service provider115 may transmit the call to both the converter 120 and the wirelesstelephone unit 190 rather than relying on the converter 120 to forwardthe call to the wireless telephone unit 190. Such functionality requiresthe wireless telephone service provider 115 to maintain in its databasean identifier of the converter and the wireless telephone unit 190 suchthat it can transmit a call signal to both units. For example, as singletelephone number may have two or more different telephone unitidentifiers associated with it, e.g., a first telephone identifier forthe converter 120 and a second telephone identifier for the wirelesstelephone unit 190. When a call is placed to the telephone number, thecall is routed to both the converter 120 and the wireless telephone unit190. The first telephone unit to answer the call will have the callforwarded to it.

In yet a further embodiment of the present invention, the wirelesstelephone unit 190 may be equipped with a location determination device,such as a Global Positioning System (GPS), Loran, or the like. Thewireless telephone unit 190 may periodically report its current positionto the wireless telephone service provider 115 which updates the currentposition in a database.

When a call is received for the wireless telephone unit 190, thewireless telephone service provider 115 first checks the last reportedcurrent position against a geographical location database to determinewhether the wireless telephone unit 190 is in the same location as thefacility 130. If not, the call is forwarded to the wireless telephoneunit 190. If it is in the same location, the call is forwarded to one ofan appropriate wired telephone unit in the facility 130 only via theconverter 120, or both the wired telephone unit and the wirelesstelephone unit 190. The decision whether to send to one or the other ispurely implementation specific, and may be user selectable.

In these alternative embodiments, the converter 120 is the same as shownin FIG. 2, however the wireless telephone service provider hasadditional functionality than that of standard wireless telephoneservice providers. FIG. 5 is an exemplary block diagram illustrating theprimary operational components of the wireless telephone serviceprovider according to these alternative embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 5, the wireless telephone service provider includes acontroller 510, a memory 520, a communication interface 530, ageographical location database 540, and a wireless unit database 550.These elements 510-550 are coupled to one another via the control/datasignal bus 560. Although a bus architecture is shown in FIG. 5, thepresent invention is not limited to such and any architecture thatfacilitates the communication of control/data signals among the elements510-550 may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

The controller 510 controls the overall operation of the wirelesstelephone service provider and orchestrates the operation of the otherelements 520-550. The controller 510 may operate based on controlprograms stored in memory 520, for example. The controller 510 controlsthe routing of calls to the wireless telephone units and the convertersassociated with facilities via the interface 530.

The geographical location database 540 stores geographical locationinformation for various facilities registered with the wirelesstelephone service provider. Such geographical location information mayinclude, for example, geographical coordinates of the facilities, theiridentifications, associated telephone numbers, and the like.

The wireless unit database 550 stores information regarding the variouswireless units that are currently under the supervision of the wirelesstelephone service provider. Such information may include identificationsof the wireless units (this includes converters), associated telephonenumbers, last reported current geographical locations, and the like.

In one of the alternative embodiments, when a call is received for awireless telephone unit, the wireless telephone service providercompares the last reported current location from the wireless unitdatabase 550 to the geographical location information stored in thegeographical location database 540 to determine if the last reportedlocation coincides with the geographical location of the facility withwhich the wireless telephone unit is associated. If so, the call may berouted to one or more of an appropriate wired telephone unit in thefacility via the converter, and the wireless telephone unit.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining an exemplary operation of a wirelesstelephone service provider according to this alternative embodiment. Asshown in FIG. 6, the operation starts with receipt of a call destinedfor a wireless telephone unit associated with a facility (step 610). Thewireless telephone service provider retrieves a last reported currentlocation for the destination wireless telephone unit (step 620). Thelast reported current location is then compared to location informationin the geographical location database (step 630). A determination isthen made as to whether the wireless telephone unit is in the samelocation as the facility (step 640). If not, the call is routed to thewireless telephone unit (step 650). If so, the call is routed to theconverter 120 and thereby to one or more of an appropriate wiredtelephone units in the facility. The call may also be routed to thewireless telephone unit (step 660).

Thus the present invention provides a mechanism by which telephone callsmay be sent to wired telephones directly from a wireless network withoutfirst going through a wired telephone network. While the presentinvention provides such functionality, this does not preclude the wiredtelephones from also receiving calls from other wired telephone devicesvia a wired telephone network. In other words, the present invention mayoperate in conjunction with wired telephone networks although thepresent invention itself does not make use of these wired telephonenetworks.

It is important to note that while the present invention has beendescribed in the context of a fully functioning call processing system,those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the processes ofthe present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of acomputer readable medium of instructions in a variety of forms and thatthe present invention applies equally regardless of the particular typeof signal bearing media actually used to carry out the distribution.Examples of computer readable media include recordable-type media, suchas a floppy disk, a hard disk drive, a RAM, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, andtransmission-type media, such as digital and analog communicationslinks, wired or wireless communications links using transmission forms,such as, for example, radio frequency and light wave transmissions. Thecomputer readable media may take the form of coded formats that aredecoded for actual use in a particular data processing system.

The description of the present invention has been presented for purposesof illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. Theembodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and their practical application, and toenable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the inventionfor various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

1-26. (canceled)
 27. A computer implemented method of routing calls fromwired telephone devices in a facility, the computer implemented methodcomprising: receiving a call from a wired telephone device; convertingthe call to a wireless telephone network format; forwarding the calldirectly to a wireless telephone network without routing the callthrough a wired telephone network external to the facility; determininga location of a wireless telephone device associated with the facilityrouting the call to the wireless telephone device based on the locationof the wireless telephone device, wherein the call is routed to thewireless telephone device only when the location of the wirelesstelephone device is not a location within the facility. 28-30.(canceled)
 31. The computer implemented method of claim 27, furthercomprising: routing the call to both the wired telephone device and thewireless telephone device.
 32. The computer implemented method of claim27, wherein the call has one or more associated wireless telephoneservices, and wherein the one or more associated wireless telephoneservices are provided through the wired telephone device.
 33. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 32, wherein the wired telephonedevice includes a wireless service unit that provides one or moreinterfaces for providing the one or more wireless telephone services toa user of the wired telephone device, wherein the services are servicesa wireless user has subscribed to receive.
 34. The computer implementedmethod of claim 27, wherein the call has an associated address, andwherein forwarding the call to the wired telephone device includeslooking up the associated address in a directory of wired telephonedevices associated with the facility, wherein the associated address isa geographic location of the facility and wherein determining if thelast reported location of the wireless telephone device coincides withthe geographical location of the facility with which the wirelesstelephone unit is associated.
 35. The computer implemented method ofclaim 27, further comprising: storing tracking information for the wiredtelephone device.
 36. The computer implemented method of claim 35,wherein the tracking information includes one or more of records ofcalls made to or from the wired telephone device, wired telephone devicepreferences, wired telephone capabilities, user preferences for a userof the wired telephone device, and billing records for the wiredtelephone device.
 37. The computer implemented method of claim 31,wherein a telephone number associated with the call has an associatedidentifier for the wired telephone device and an associated identifierfor the wireless telephone device, and wherein the call is routes to thewired telephone device and the wireless telephone device based on theassociated identifiers.
 38. The computer implemented method of claim 31,further comprising: determining when to route the calls to the wired orwireless telephones associated with the facility; and routing the callbased upon the determination.
 39. An apparatus for routing calls fromwired telephone devices in a facility, comprising: a facility wirednetwork interface; a wireless network interface; and a controllercoupled to both the facility wired network interface and the wirelessnetwork interface, wherein the controller receives a call from a wiredtelephone device; converts the call to a wireless telephone networkformat; forwards the call directly to a wireless telephone networkwithout routing the call through a wired telephone network external tothe facility; determines a location of a wireless telephone deviceassociated with the facility; routes the call to the wireless telephonedevice based on the location of the wireless telephone device, whereinthe call is routed to the wireless telephone device only when thelocation of the wireless telephone device is not a location within thefacility.
 40. The apparatus of claim 39, wherein the controller routesthe call to both the wired telephone device and the wireless telephonedevice.
 41. The apparatus of claim 40, wherein the call has anassociated address, and wherein the controller forwards the call to thewired telephone device includes looking up the associated address in adirectory of wired telephone devices associated with the facility,wherein the associated address is a geographic location of the facilityand wherein determining if the last reported location of the wirelesstelephone device coincides with the geographical location of thefacility with which the wireless telephone unit is associated.
 42. Theapparatus of claim 39, wherein the controller stores trackinginformation for the wired telephone device.
 43. The apparatus of claim39, wherein the controller determines when to route the calls to thewired or wireless telephones associated with the facility; and routesthe call based upon the determination.
 44. A computer program productcomprising: a computer usable medium including computer usable programcode for routing calls from a wired telephone devices in a facility, thecomputer program product including: computer usable program code forreceiving a call from a wired telephone device; computer usable programcode for converting the call to a wireless telephone network format;computer usable program code for forwarding the call directly to awireless telephone network without routing the call through a wiredtelephone network external to the facility; computer usable program codefor determining a location of a wireless telephone device associatedwith the facility; computer usable program code for routing the call tothe wireless telephone device based on the location of the wirelesstelephone device, wherein the call is routed to the wireless telephonedevice only when the location of the wireless telephone device is not alocation within the facility.
 45. The computer program product of claim44, further including: computer usable program code for routing the callto both the wired telephone device and the wireless telephone device.46. The computer program product of claim 44, wherein the call has anassociated address, and wherein forwarding the call to the wiredtelephone device includes looking up the associated address in adirectory of wired telephone devices associated with the facility,wherein the associated address is a geographic location of the facilityand wherein determining if the last reported location of the wirelesstelephone device coincides with the geographical location of thefacility with which the wireless telephone unit is associated.
 47. Thecomputer program product of claim 44, further including: computer usableprogram code for storing tracking information for the wired telephonedevice.
 48. The computer program product of claim 45, wherein atelephone number associated with the call has an associated identifierfor the wired telephone device and an associated identifier for thewireless telephone device, and wherein the call is routes to the wiredtelephone device and the wireless telephone device based on theassociated identifiers.
 49. The computer program product of claim 44,further including: computer usable program code for determining when toroute the calls to the wired or wireless telephones associated with thefacility; and computer usable program code for routing the call basedupon the determination.